AHC: Earliest Possible Post-Reconstruction Civil Rights

What would it take for civil rights legislation to pass before the 1950s? Is there a POD for an earlier civil rights movement taking places before the 50s and 60s? How would an earlier Civil Rigts Movement affect contemporary race relations?
 
There were serous attempts at anti-lynching legislation in the 1920's and 1930's, and at anti-poll-tax legislation by 1940. But the first modern president to propose a broad program of *general* civil rights legislation was Truman in 1948. To show how little chance it had of passing: "A March 1948 Gallup poll revealed that 82 percent of the respondents opposed Truman's civil rights program." https://books.google.com/books?id=A94zj6PYV7gC&pg=PT251 (He did implement some of the proposals through executive orders, however.) Even after Truman's victory in 1948, civil rights and other proposals of his faced hard going in Congress because of the filibuster in the Senate and the '"conservative coalition" of southern Democrats and Republicans. (See the cartoon at http://history.house.gov/Exhibition...says/Keeping-the-Faith/Civil-Rights-Movement/) A lot of small-state senators from the West were opposed to any weakening of the filibuster because they saw it as the key to small-state power. (Also, they had few African American votes to worry about, and wanted southerners as allies on farm legislation.)

In short, what is surprising is not so much that it took so long to get a civil rights bill passed, but that it was possible to pass even a watered-down one in 1957.
 
Maybe a good place to start is for there to be less regression early in the 20th Century; no segregation of the Federal government, no rebirth of the KKK, etc.
 
There were serous attempts at anti-lynching legislation in the 1920's and 1930's, and at anti-poll-tax legislation by 1940. But the first modern president to propose a broad program of *general* civil rights legislation was Truman in 1948. To show how little chance it had of passing: "A March 1948 Gallup poll revealed that 82 percent of the respondents opposed Truman's civil rights program." https://books.google.com/books?id=A94zj6PYV7gC&pg=PT251 (He did implement some of the proposals through executive orders, however.) Even after Truman's victory in 1948, civil rights and other proposals of his faced hard going in Congress because of the filibuster in the Senate and the '"conservative coalition" of southern Democrats and Republicans. (See the cartoon at http://history.house.gov/Exhibition...says/Keeping-the-Faith/Civil-Rights-Movement/) A lot of small-state senators from the West were opposed to any weakening of the filibuster because they saw it as the key to small-state power. (Also, they had few African American votes to worry about, and wanted southerners as allies on farm legislation.)

In short, what is surprising is not so much that it took so long to get a civil rights bill passed, but that it was possible to pass even a watered-down one in 1957.
82% of people being opposed to civil rights is quite a concerning statistic, even for 1948. Were race relations better at any point of time before 1948 and after the Civil War?
 
Have Woodrow Wilson get hit by a Model T while campaigning for President. Then we might see some civil rights legislation passed in the 1920s.
If we avoid the great depression it will get passed in the 1930s,the KKK was splintering and not to popular with the general public at the time,due to its excesses and abuse of power. People might just support civil rights just to piss off the Klan,or politicians would support civil rights to show voters they are not affiliated with the klan.
 
Have Woodrow Wilson get hit by a Model T while campaigning for President. Then we might see some civil rights legislation passed in the 1920s.

Why? The Republicans overwhelmingly controlled Congress in the 1920's in OTL, and they were unable even to get anti-lynching legislation passed.
 
Why? The Republicans overwhelmingly controlled Congress in the 1920's in OTL, and they were unable even to get anti-lynching legislation passed.
Wilson instatunilized segration into the Federal government remove that barrier and things might happen.
 
82% of people being opposed to civil rights is quite a concerning statistic, even for 1948. Were race relations better at any point of time before 1948 and after the Civil War?

Actually, African Americans had made a fair amount of progress by 1948 compared with the early twentieth century--lynchings were way down, the New Deal had helped to expand the black middle class and get blacks some government jobs, and more African Americans were voting, even in the South. But these very facts caused a backlash among the most racist whites, and led more moderate ones into complacency. Moreover, this poll was taken at a time when Truman was unpopular, so the fact that it was *Truman's* civil rights program that was being asked about may have affected the results. Probably the attitude of northern whites (I mean the *less* racist northern whites) was typically something like, "The colored people are making progress, anyway, and we have more important things to worry about, like inflation and communism.")
 
Wilson instatunilized segration into the Federal government remove that barrier and things might happen.

Federal employees were a very small part of the population. The general civil rights situation did not change much under Wilson--things like disfranchisement, segregation in public transportation and public facilities in the South, the increase in lynchings, etc. had happened well before Wilson became president, with no effective resistance by the Republicans who controlled the federal government at that time.
 
Perhaps if there was some way for the Republicans to hold onto their supermajorities in Congress under Harding. But huge gains made in wave elections like 1920 are very difficult to hold onto.

I don't think you can get it out of a Democratic controlled legislature much earlier than OTL and the filibuster will kill it without a huge majority in the Senate even for the Republicans.
 
Hughes elected 16, Conservative Democrats in power 1921 to 1933, Progressive Republican New deal, not needing deals with racist Southerners in either House of Congress
 
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